Who Is Doing Hall of Fame Voting?

So, it looks as if Michael Jordan, John Stockton, David Robinson, Jerry Sloan and Vivien Stringer are going to make it into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Congratulations to 'em.

But every time I hear of a Basketball Hall of Fame vote, I actually get annoyed. I don't want to get annoyed, but I get annoyed.

I'd like nothing more than to stroll down memory lane, reliving some of the good times of the past. Maybe even have an argument or two over who deserved to get in and who didn't.

But you can't even begin to get into any kind of discussion about Basketball Hall of Fame voting because you can't get past one fact:

WE DON'T KNOW WHO VOTES.

And just like George Costanza couldn't not think about the nose, I can't not think about who gets to make the selections here. We're told by the Hall of Fame's website that the Honors Committee is made up of Hall of Famers, basketball executives, media members and other contributors to the game.

C'mon. That could be David Stern, Jerry West and cousin Sal, who had the St. Margaret's CYO squad at 11-4 this season. Why are these people not known?

The NFL uses a 44-person board of selectors and publishes the names of every one of them. You've got to be a member of the Baseball Writers Association to get a Hall of Fame vote in baseball, but those names are easy to find.

I didn't have time to look but I'll bet you anything the NHL's got the names handy.

Hoops? Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine. Whoever they are did a nice job of voting in Adrian Dantley in 2008. But why can't we find out how Dick Vitale got in with him or what exactly it was that made Bill Bradley an inductee in 1983?

Last week I asked Don Nelson, who missed out on induction for the third time, what he knew of the Hall of Fame voting process.

"Not much," he said. "I think you need 18 of 24 votes."

Nelson is correct, but there's a lot more to it than that. Here's what we know but it gets dry in a hurry. There are four categories to get in: North America; Women; Veterans; International. There are 24 people on each of those four categories/committees.

A core group of 12 people sit on all four committees. Twelve "specialists" are then added to the International committee, while 12 others are added to the Women's committee. Twelve other specialists review both the Veterans committee and the North American committee.

Had enough?

Look, I'm not saying anybody got hosed here or anything like that. Sure, there are things I'd like to know such as what separates a Nelson from a Sloan or whether or not a guy like Chris Mullin is even in the discussion.

But you can't have that conversation. Because in order to have a conversation, you need to know who you're talking to.